20.10.2014.

Exhibition "Liberation of Belgrade 1944" opened at the Military Museum

On the occasion of today’s jubilee, seven decades since the liberation of the capital, an exhibition “Liberation of Belgrade 1944” by senior curator of the Military Museum Dusanka Maricic was opened at the Military Museum in Belgrade.

Items from that period have been selected from museum collections – pieces of weaponry, equipment and clothing items of the German Nazi military, allied liberating forces of the Red Army, National Liberation Army, Yugoslav partisans and citizens who took part in the liberation of the capital.

The guests were addressed by Assistant Minister of Defence for Human Resources Milos Jankovic and Head of the Military Museum Lieutenant Colonel Ivan Mijatovic, PhD.

According to Jankovic, in the year when we celebrate 70 years since the liberation of Belgrade, “we proudly remember all the fighters who were killed between 1941 and 1944, in our region and wider”.

- The exhibition is a testimony of a part of Belgrade’s past, and also a token of peace and further future. With this exhibition, we wish to revive the memory of those who gave their lives and fought for the liberation of the capital, regardless of their nationality, and to revive the memory of all the innocent victims in Belgrade concentration camp in the Second World War. Liberators of Belgrade showed decisiveness and courage, they won with honor and enabled us to live in peace – Jankovic said.

Lieutenant Colonel Mijatovic stressed that the liberation of Belgrade was a “beginning of the end of occupation of Yugoslavia, the beginning of the breakdown of Fascist units in this region and the beginning of creation of a new state – the second Yugoslavia”.

- Fate of the Military Museum is partly intertwined with the liberation of Belgrade, and today’s exhibition is an opportunity for many untold stories to be presented to the broader public. The exhibition is a result of hard work of the Military Museum and it is opened exactly on the anniversary of the liberation of Belgrade, so it will stay remembered as a part of collective memory in the moment of marking of the jubilee – Lieutenant Colonel Mijatovic said.

The exhibition displays over 50 enlarged photographs following the events from 1944. There is also a photo-album with 244 photographs showing Belgrade on October 20, 1944, art pieces, photographs, photo-albums and the “Lajka” camera which Vladeta Limic used to document Belgrade at the time of its liberation. With various documents and decorations, there are also excerpts from the press, books, museum items, awards and the flag which the City of Belgrade awarded to the liberators.